ArmNET

Armenian language support in windows

Armenian web pages should be built using Unicode (UTF-8) encoding only. First, you need to make sure you have Armenian language support available in your workstation. If not, you need to add it. In case of Windows this is an easy task to be done from the Control Panel. The problem is that it may happen that Windows installer files required for this operation are missing. If this is the case, please find below the needed packages for Windows 2000 and Windows XP (Vista and Windows 7 seem to have the necessary files by default). Unpack the relevant file somewhere and when asked for the Windows installation disk point to that folder.

Download for Windows 2000

Download for Windows XP

Phonetic layout

You may want to type text using phonetic layout. Below is an installer for doing so. It will also add a few good Armenian Unicode fonts to your PC. The Installer says it is made for 2000/XP/2003, but it works well for Vista and Windows 7 as well.

Download Armenian keyboard layouts

Editing and converting

Editing of pages may be done by any editor supporting Unicode. If you prefer text editors, you can use, for example, UltraEdit or Notepad++. If you have pages written in ARMSCII-8 and want to convert them to UTF-8, please try, for example, BabelPad. Also see http://hayeren.am Web Site.

Fonts to use

The most popular fonts in the Armenian Web are the following: Arian AMU, Arial AMU, Arial Unicode, Tahoma Armenian and Sylfaen. For more information please visit Ruben Tarumian's Website and Ovanitas blog.

With some JavaScript it is possible to detect whether, say, Arian AMU or Arial AMU fonts are missing on the visitor's PC. If those are missing, then it can be useful to display a notice and suggest downloading and installing these fonts.

Be creative!